


The Distance Between Two Points

by mahoni



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 100-1000 Words, Episode Related, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-20
Updated: 2008-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 10:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahoni/pseuds/mahoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being lost forty thousand years in the future and nearly getting eaten by a red giant, Sheppard didn't feel like sleeping alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Distance Between Two Points

**Author's Note:**

> Tag to the episode "The Last Man"

Ronon hadn't been asleep long. His mind had been turning over and over since he lay down, buzzing with the information Sheppard had brought from the future, with the fact that Teyla was only days away from being back and safe with them. He'd eventually drifted off but it was a restless sleep, and when his door slid open he was still half-awake.

The door closed with a hush, returning the room to darkness.

"Ronon," Sheppard said.

"Yeah," he said, and shifted forward to leave room on the other side of the bed.

Sheppard shuffled forward until his shins collided with the foot of the bed; instead of going around to the side he just crawled on.

"You remembered the door code," Ronon said, yawning.

Tucking himself up at the head of the bed, Sheppard wrestled the covers out from under himself and then stretched out beneath them. "What?"

"You were gone a long time."

"No I wasn't." He sounded faintly exasperated. He'd been over it plenty all day, with Carter and Lorne, with the medical staff, with McKay and his science staff. Usually at the same time that they were poking him with needles and scanning him with machines to make sure he really was who and what he said he was.

Ronon had known it was him. Partly because he'd desperately wanted it to be him, but partly because he didn't think a Replicator or shapechanger or any other kind of alien thing would have known how to mimic that look Sheppard got in his eyes when he'd been wading through hell following the thinnest thread of hope to save somebody he loved.

"Forty thousand years," Ronon said, and realized he was more asleep than he'd thought he was. He was trying to say something but it wasn't coming out right.

The bed trembled as Sheppard tried to get comfortable without disturbing Ronon any more than he had to.

"Most of that time passed me by without me even noticing. Same with the two weeks I was actually gone. I mean. Just, as far as I could tell, I was gone a day." He settled finally, and warmth started to radiate across the few inches between their backs. "Not nearly long enough for me to forget your door code."

Ronon must have drifted off again, because he had to take a deep breath and wait a second while his head remembered how to make words before he could manage, "What was that like?" It came out a whisper.

A sleepy silence, and then, softly, "Huh?"

Ronon cleared his throat and said a little louder, "Forty thousand years from home."

"Oh." Sheppard shifted; Ronon could feel him wrapping his arm around the pillow the way he always did and tugging it closer. "Um. Weird."

For a moment Ronon thought that was all he was going to get, and since it was the middle of the night...but just when he was starting to soak up the darkness again, Sheppard said,

"Because -- I was home. But I was thousands of years away from people, everyone I knew. From human civilization entirely."

Ronon leaned back a little until their shoulders bumped. "What was it like?" Which, again, was not exactly what he was trying to say.

In the long pause he rubbed his eyes and wished he'd waited until morning. Thinking when mostly asleep never worked very well.

"Lonely."

Ronon let his hand fall to the bed and looked out into the pitch black of his room. He knew that had been a statement, not a request, because Sheppard rarely asked for that sort of thing; but still, Ronon rolled over, wrapping his arm around Sheppard's waist and pulling him close. Sheppard bent his knees and nudged back until there wasn't a breath of space between them. He let go of the pillow and found Ronon's hand, twining their fingers together. A long sigh, and he was loose and warm in Ronon's arms.

Ronon had the light-blocking screen turned all the way up on his windows and the soundproofer on the room dialed way up too. Being able to sleep in a room where he could block out the rest of the world and know he was safe had been a hard thing to get used to, but now he loved it. It was a luxury he could afford.

This was a luxury, too: not being in the dark room alone.

Lying in bed in the silence listening to Sheppard breathe.

A yawn suddenly shuddered through him. He let it out, nuzzled his face against Sheppard's neck and fell asleep.

*


End file.
